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" I know it's politically incorrect but I enjoy things like the kick boxing and cock fighting. "

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" I don't want children. Why should I let some strange little monster into my life to destroy what to me is a perfect set-up? "

" The first story I ever sold was to 'Argosy' magazine, which no longer exists. That issue also contained work by several other more celebrated writers, like Ray Bradbury - so I felt I had at least one toe on the ladder. "

" There's nothing so aphrodisiacal for a woman as money and success. "

" I am a closet birdwatcher. I can identify Southern African species, but it irks me I can barely tell a jay from a blackbird in the U.K. "

" At the age of 12 I won the school prize for Best English Essay. The prize was a copy of Somerset Maugham's 'Introduction To Modern English And American Literature.' To this day I keep it on the shelf between my collection of Forester's works and the little urn that contains my mother's ashes. "

" I love the sea as much as I love the veldt of Africa. "

" My mama loved books; I became fascinated by the wonderful stories that came out of these things she held in her hand - and started to make them up myself. "

" I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers, beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books. "

" Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them. "

" Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels. "

" I grew up in Rhodesia on my father's ranch and every year he used to take us on safari in some remote area of the wilderness. "

" It's probably true that everyone has a book in them, although it may not be a very good one. "

" Politicians all over the world cater to domestic vote banks. They will spend only on what their constituents want. So unless there is a grass root green movement in a nation the politicians will not be willing to spend money on curbing emissions. More awareness is needed amongst the people to effect the real change in how governments spend. "

" I write my books in my head, and not in a specific study with a view. The view is from my inner eyes. "

" My father was my god. His approval was so valuable to me. "

" I'm not a prophet; I can only use historical reality to come to a view of the future, and my view is that Africa will return to being African and not European. The advent of colonialism was foreign to the country itself, but it will return to what it was before the Europeans arrived. "

" I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even acknowledge me - which is unheard of among sailors - and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba. "

" Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I think: 'What was all that about, Smith? It's fine, just get on with it.' "

" I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm delighted to be looked on as his heir and be categorised as an adventure novelist because that's exactly what I am. "

" I think one of the most poignant things is unrequited love and loneliness. "

" I have been blessed in many ways, and one of those is to have been born in Africa, for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy; reading about it, talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land, living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience. "

" I work on my novels wherever I have a PC, and I have four or five places around the world where I do have a PC. These days you can just slip a little flash drive into your top pocket, fly for 12 hours, come to another place, plug it into a computer and you are away again. "

" There are people out there with an eye on my hard-earned cash who think that I am a pushover. I am not! "

" I shot my first lion at the age of 14 when a pride threatened my father's livestock while he was away on holiday. "

" Literature throws us many great heroes. Real life invariably outdoes them. "

" I go on a hunting safari at least once a year to Botswana, which is fantastic because we have a huge area of wilderness entirely to ourselves. My island covers roughly 55 acres, which again I have to myself, with nearly half a kilometre of private beach with my own jetties and boats. "

" What I like about writing is the sense of godlike power it gives you. "

" I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind. "

" They say I'm worth either €200 million, €100 million, €50 million or €10 million, but that's something between God, the HMRC and myself. "

" The mistake the apartheid government made was they gave the black people nothing, so they had nothing to lose. But now a lot of the former freedom-fighters are big-time capitalists. They've been given directorships in every major company. They're billionaires! "